Our short flight from Siem Reap to Vientiane left in the early evening, which gave us time to to tour a silk farm and visit the Siem Reap Cultural Center. The silk farm was started with French financial support as an effort to give employment to the local rural population who otherwise end up drifting to the cities. It now employs over a thousand men and women. They have a well organized apprentice ship program to teach raising of the silk worms, growing the mulberry shrubs, spinning and the traditional silk weaving. Unfortunately, I accidentally removed all the pictures from the memory chip, of this visit and the ones at lunch time of the butterflies at the Butterfly Cafe. The Cultural Center was a sort of theme park, very well done, showing the life styles of the main ethnic groups in Cambodia. The Khmers, Chams, Chinese etc. There was a Khmer wedding reenactment for which a woman and man were pulled out of the audience to participate in. Iris was one of them. We are staying in an older colonial era hotel on the Mekong here in Vientiane. It is now Wednesday morning and time for breakfast and planning the things we want to see here before heading further North to Luang Prabang.
